HP may have bought off California's grandstanding attorney general and stopped him from filing civil charges against the company but it's still got to deal with an SEC investigation, an FTC investigation and a lawsuit or two because of its ill-advised attempts to plug press leaks from its boardroom, and now Congress wants to know how come HP CEO Mark Hurd, so far unscathed by the rumpus, happened to exercise and cash in $1.37 million worth of stock options right before the company's spying caper became public fodder, the same day Hurd was questioned by outside HP lawyers about the soon-to-be mess.

A letter written to Hurd by a couple of Michigan Democrats says the transaction didn't appear to be pre-scheduled. They want to know whether he made the sale while "in possession of potentially damaging material facts that shareholders" lacked.

HP stock price wasn't impacted by the raunchy headlines but nobody could have guessed that.

Hurd has until December 21 to explain and to tell the congressmen whether any other HP officers or directors followed suit. The news rattled HP's stock a bit.

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A letter written to Hurd by a couple of Michigan Democrats says the transaction didn't appear to be pre-scheduled. They want to know whether he made the sale while 'in possession of potentially damaging material facts that shareholders' lacked.